The immunological status of newborn is an important issue. This status encompasses to the protection present at the birth of the infant and to the acquisition of such immunological protection during the first hours, days or weeks of the infant life. The ability to acquire and maintain such protection is a crucial factor in the health of the infant faced with his new environment. In humans these issues are of the highest importance for the health of the population.
Maintaining the expecting mothers in good health condition during gestation is a key factor for promoting the health of the offspring during gestation and after birth. General health factors that are known include their nutritional habits, their micro-nutriment intake, their infectious history and also relate to their immunological status. For example deficiencies in some minerals, vitamins or substances (such as folic acid) can affect the development of the fetus and also affect post-natal infant development. The nutrition of the mother plays in that respect a key role in the future health of the infants and much efforts have been made to monitor and improve the nutritional balance of the expecting mothers. Food supplements or simply general eating guidelines are essential in that respect.
Along with general nutritional guidance for expecting mothers, it is now recognized that some specific food can promote the proliferation of a specific microbiota in the gastro-intestinal tract of the expecting mother. The balanced microbiota in turn may have an effect on the host.
The use of prebiotics, i.e. nutritional substances for improving the intestinal microbiota of a host, has been described for example in WO 02/07533 for its health benefits in females.
Moreover, it has been claimed in WO2007/105945A that feeding of the expecting mothers with prebiotics ingredients, especially certain type of non digestible saccharides could improve the microbiota and/or the immune system of the offspring.
Complementing the nutritional intake with micro-organisms, preferably live micro-organisms, has also been demonstrated to improve the microbiota balance of the intestinal tract of the host. The modulation of the microbiota of the intestinal tract by specific live micro-organisms has been shown to bring particular positive physiological effects. For example the immune response induced by specific types of probiotic bacteria has been widely studied and described (“Cross talk between probiotics bacteria and the host immune system”, The journal of nutrition. Blaise Corthesy et al., supplement, 2007, pages 781S-790S). As described in the scientific literature, specific strains of micro-organisms have been shown more particularly to have beneficial effects. Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and Lactobacillus caseii are generally known examples of families shown to have probiotics effects.
It is hypothesized that probiotics, as other commensals, will influence immune functions of the host either via modulation of the microbiota composition and/or metabolic activity or through a direct interaction with the immune system underlying the gut mucosa. Following this interaction, immune functions will be activated as reflected by the release of immune mediators (cytokines), production of antibodies and activation of lymphocytes as well as other immune cells. These activated cells, cytokines and/or bacterial compounds will exert immune modulatory functions at different location of the body through the blood circulation. In that respect, it is postulated that a beneficial effect on the immune status of the mother through probiotic supplementation may already influence fetal immune development. Moreover, it is also known that immune cells and other bioactive factors originating from the gut of the mother could be transported to the breast milk via an entero-mammary transport pathway and transmitted to the neonate during lactation. Therefore, it is worth to further hypothesize that supplementation of pregnant mothers might promote an enrichment of the breast milk with immune factors that would contribute to support neonatal immune development.
Securing the healthy future of offspring is a well recognized need. More specifically insuring the best development and maturation of the immune system of the offspring is of the highest importance.
Conventionally, beside medical treatments responding to specific medical conditions, emphasis is put on a good nutritional balance of the expecting mothers. Not much is however known on how to specifically enhance the immune status of the offspring during the gestation period.
There is however a need for a further step in securing the healthy future of the offspring, using the most recent finding on nutrition.
There is therefore a need for positively impacting the health of the offspring by a targeted nutritional diet of the expecting mothers.
There is in particular a need to help guaranteeing the best immune system in the offspring, in order to best prepare them to the early life antigenic challenges as well as to enhance the future maturation of their immune system to better promote protection during later infancy.
There is a need to impact the building of the immune system of the offspring at the earliest possible stage during and all along the gestation as well as the early phases of their new born life when the immune system is maturing at high pace.
There is a need to boost the ability of the immune system of the offspring to react against antigens in general and against infectious diseases in particular.
There is a need to deliver these benefits by means that are both efficient and deprived of negative impact on the expecting mothers and or their offspring.